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8/5/09

The WSJ (via DJNW) is running the story "Peru's Intergroup: No Signs Of Strong Economic Recovery" today and it starts like this:

LIMA (Dow Jones)--Peru's economic recovery will continue to be subdued, although a "mild" rebound is expected in the second half, Intergroup Financial Services Corp.'s (IFS.VL) chief financial officer said Wednesday.

"We are still not seeing strong signals of a recovery," said Jose Antonio Rosas in a conference call with analysts, adding that increased government spending will help boost growth.

Peru's gross domestic product rose close to 10% last year, while in the first five months of this year GDP has expanded by only 0.83%. CONTINUES HERE

For the record Intergroup is the holding company for Interbank, a pretty decent Peruvian high-street banking chain. So what this is is the start of a bit of reality, not much more. My eyes popped out on seeing the adjective "only" as regards Peru's GDP, cos it's the first time I've seen even a mildly derogatory comment about Peru's lop-sided, socially disgraceful "growth" in five years of MSM-watching. So suddenly the voice of English language mainstream media has changed from "Peru Economic Miracle" to "Peru flat for year", so what are they going to say when the next GDP figure comes out way, way negative?

The fruitfly analyses continue in other places however. RGEMonitor (the Roubini place full of the dumbasses in suits that you call economists) is still peddling the party line, as found in my inbox this morning:

A couple countries in Latin America have thus far been able to weather this crisis better than their neighbors. Brazil and Peru stand out for their relatively healthy fundamentals and financial systems. Both countries have benefitted from being relatively closed economies and from having diversified export markets and products.

This is BS. Brazil has an internal economy, but Peru is wholly dependent of the rest of the world and metals prices. The crap spouted by S&P last year wasn't confined to AAA ratings on US financial roadkills, as I still recall the day I guffawed non-stop about its call on the "surging internal economy of Peru" as it justified the worst ever 'investment grade' rating in the history of developing markets. Peru's single major export market is the gold that gets sent directly from Chicama and Yanacocha to vaults in Switzerland. Then comes copper to Asia and that's all she wrote, its about as diversified as the recipe for hotdogs. Not long now til the emperor is shown in his birthday suit and the arrogant know-alls at RGE eat their words, side order of crow. Short the Nuevo Sol.

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